Bid Manager Review

My role involves capturing opportunities for new business, creating a plan for submitting bid responses, and managing that process to ensure that we represent our ability as a company to meet the needs of the client in our bid response document. It brings together all areas of the business in a pre-sales setting

I have learnt lots of new skills around management of a variety of personalities. I have learnt a lot of new planning skills too that make sure that all bid activities are completed to a high standard in good time to get a bid in to the client on time

I very much enjoyed the work and I enjoyed spending time with my University cohort, but the University itself had a lot of room for improvement. I am scoring this low to get the attention of potential future Degree Apprentices. I would like to say the programme is worth it, but the workload is something to strongly consider, it is not an easy programme because University does take over a lot of your personal time and it will feel pointless a lot of the time

It was not well structured from a University side, whilst it is getting better, a lot of the lecturers did not grasp the subject of a Degree Apprentice and had no idea that we were working full time in a professional environment so had tendencies to talk down to us and our experience

My employer was very supportive, to stress again it was the University that let down the seamlessness of the programme. From a work perspective I got a lot of opportunities to pick up bids and have responsibility within the team, for that I am very grateful to CGI as a company

Very little, the University was very hard to get comms back from and they don't respect you very much as an individual. Again, I have heard improvements are being made, but from my experience you get given the module handbook and are left to make a lot of your own assumptions.

My qualification was behind my learning at work, I had already applied a lot of the topics we were learning in the workplace and by the time of graduation it felt like I was only working to get a piece of paper that proves I could do things that I had already been doing

Yes the CGI sports and social club was very good, it funds activities for you and other CGI members. I was attending weekly football and basketball for little to no cost and I have been to a wide range of events in London and things like Ascot race days that were funded by CGI. Very good

Yes

CGI is a very good starting point in your career, they give you a lot of early career support and will give you the foundational skills that are required to go elsewhere and earn a higher salary. I think CGI pay competitively until you graduate, at which time they need to catch up to the rest of the industry that don't treat you as a graduate, but treat you as a young professional with three years of experience

Learn about the company, and I don't mean be able to recite how many employees there are of the founders and founding year, I mean read about projects that CGI have published, see what skills you could apply to them, link them to your interests. If you are applying for a business role, what areas of the business interest you, have examples!